


Still Waters

by followthefreedomtrail



Series: Matters of Life and Death [3]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Chapter six happened but I can’t, Coping, Developing Relationship, F/M, Grief, I repeat CANNOT, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, write it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2020-05-18 17:36:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19339321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/followthefreedomtrail/pseuds/followthefreedomtrail
Summary: Knowing her before, he wouldn’t have been able to picture her wasting away like this–into nothing.She’s skin and bones and now he knows why Arthur had asked him to stay with her.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is what the kids call “purely self-indulgent”.
> 
> Takes place post-Chapter 6. A sequel to Whiplash.
> 
> xoxo

The word that comes to his mind is excruciating.

Watching Maggie grieve makes it difficult to ignore the twist of his own heart. For the first few days, he finds it almost impossible to do much of anything but feel. He can’t sit for longer than a few minutes, constantly rising and pacing and sitting and rising and pacing. Every so often, he hears her sob and he feels his throat tighten.

Arthur is gone.

Maggie is _nearly_ gone.

She hardly moves. Won’t even take the bed, though he continues to offer it night after night. She sits back against the wall or curled up on the hard, wooden floor and mourns. At times, she is silent and at others, her grief is loud and unbridled. Charles tries not to look at her–seeing her so tormented feels like an intrusion–but when he does, she always looks sickly. Pale. Gaunt. Lifeless. He’d wondered more than once if she’d passed away and let his fingers seek her pulse beneath her jaw, only to find her heart still pumping weakly, persisting through the unimaginable.

Knowing her before, he wouldn’t have been able to picture her wasting away like this–into nothing. She’s skin and bones and now he knows why Arthur had asked him to stay with her.

Charles has no frame of reference for the depth of this suffering. He can only wonder if it feels anything like what he’d endured losing his mother, if Magdelyn hates Micah the way he hates the men who stole her and never brought her back.

Years and years and he still finds himself bitter.

He decides if it’s anything like that, then he knows this can potentially consume her and Charles made a promise not to let that happen.

He doesn’t ask if she’s okay. Neither of them are. But he knows she’s aware that he’s there for her by the blankets he drapes over her as she curls in on herself and the warm hand he rests on her back as she convulses beneath him when the grief rips her apart.

Sometimes he sleeps beside her on the floor, too scared to lose her in the night, and it’s an overwhelming comfort to them both. He catches her looking over at him more than once those nights and the simple understanding that they share the empty ache of losing Arthur does more than any words could. That both had known him well and now are left with memories that feel less and less real as the days drag by.

On the fifth day, he notices they’re running out of food. Arthur had stocked the cabin up with a fair amount of cans but even with Magdelyn eating very little, their supply is running low.

He moves around the room, gathering everything he needs for a quick outing, and there’s a restless energy in his limbs. He hasn’t left the cabin for much of anything but gathering wood since they arrived. Maggie leans against the wall, bundled in a blanket though the fire blazes just beside her. She doesn’t look at him as he makes his preparations and he wonders if she’d even notice if he left without saying where he was headed and when he’d be back.

“I’m going hunting,” he says, and she remains unresponsive. He sighs and walks over to her, crouching by her side.

She finally meets his eyes, face tight and controlled.

“Can I get you anything?”

Maggie draws in a long breath and it gets stuck in her throat. “No, thank you,” she whispers.

He pulls a revolver from his belt and sets it carefully on the floor at her thigh. “If anyone comes in,” he starts, but she cuts him off with a nod.

“I know.” She clears her throat. “Thank you.”

Slowly, reluctantly, he stands and looks down on her small, pitiful form. If anyone does come in, she won’t last. He doubts she can aim, doubts she’d even have the strength to call for help, let alone fend off attackers.

“I won’t go far,” he promises.

Her eyes close tightly and she sniffs, nodding.

As soon as he closes the door behind him, he hears her break apart again.


	2. Chapter 2

He’s sharpening blunted arrows when she asks what he knows she’s been thinking since the first night he stayed with her. The words have been hanging on her tongue for days and he’s been waiting–dreading–for her to finally speak them.

When they do come, they’re barely a whisper, almost overpowered by the ambient sounds of the lively forest just outside.

“Why’re you here?”

He freezes, unsure what the right thing to say is. Begs for more time to decide.

Magdelyn misinterprets his silence and backpedals. “I don’t mean I’d rather be… alone, I just… ‘m sure you got better things to do ‘n look after me.”

“I don’t,” he says, and means it.

She sighs, the sound shaky and on the verge of becoming a cry. “Don’t put your life on hold for me, Charles. God knows how long it’ll take for me to not be so damned useless.”

“That’s alright,” he reassures her.

He turns his head to see she isn’t looking at him. She faces away and her eyes are dim but for the reflection of the fire dancing in them.

He _hates_ the quiver in her voice when she tells him, “You should go. _Live_. This ain’t no life–”

It’s out of sheer pain that he stops her, unable to hear her attempt to convince him to abandon Arthur’s last request. The last thing he’s able to do for his brother. “I can’t.” His tone is final. Somber. “I… made a promise.”

Her eyes flash to his and the spark he sees–of recognition; of emotion–is quickly replaced by a piercing sadness. She brings a shaking hand to rest at the corner of her mouth, he thinks to hide the way her lips tighten and thin as she fights the inevitable overflow because they both know to whom he gave his word.

“Who?”

He hesitates, nods, and that’s all it takes.

Her eyes close tightly. She’s silent and if her nose didn’t scrunch up the way he’d seen it before, like she’s still trying _every_ _time_ not to cry so hard, then he wouldn’t know she was so close to tears. She suddenly gasps like she’s only just coming up for air after being held underwater too long. Trembling hands cradle her face and she makes desperate, choking, broken sounds as she falls apart. She slumps into her knees, at the mercy of her chasmic depression, her hair falling like a black veil around her.

It’s too sad a scene for Charles to do _nothing_. He waits a moment. Just stares at her with guilt-heavy eyes because her wounds are still so fresh. He should’ve waited. It wasn’t the right time for her to know why he’s still here when everyone else has parted ways.

He rises and presses his feet hard into the ground so that she hears his approach, expects it and isn’t caught off guard. Sliding down beside her, he lets a hand rest on her back.

Feeling her misery is so much worse.

His own vision blurs because her ribs are pronounced under his hand and she shakes and whimpers feebly; he can’t help but feel he’s already broken his promise. Failed his friend and failed Magdelyn. She’s coming apart at the seams and he’s powerless to prevent it. To do anything but watch and ache and plead, if the dead have ears, for Arthur’s forgiveness.

“It’s alright,” he says hoarsely, though words mean nothing at this point. He supposes he speaks to remind her she isn’t alone, more than anything.

Clutching her chest, she keels over and it’s through a sore throat that she cries, “ _hurts so goddamn much._ ”

“I know,” he agrees, the words breaking halfway through in testament to his honesty.

It does hurt. A crippling amount.

Losing Arthur, he thinks, feels like losing a limb. There, taken for granted, and then abruptly, unannounced, it’s gone, a phantom throb in its stead to remind you that once, you were whole. That nothing will ever be the same because what you’ve lost is irreplaceable and when one day you eternally collapse, you’ll know it’s been a slow death. That there are parts of you that died long ago and nothing– _nothing_ –is as painful as that: living only half alive.

Magdelyn knows it as deeply as he does, though the shared sting of Arthur’s death remains largely unspoken.

So instead of speaking, she cries; cries and retches everything she hasn’t eaten. When she’s finally dry, emptied and wrung out, she slips into a pained unconsciousness against Charles’ shoulder. He fights to stay alert and upright for her until, fully exhausted, he can no longer keep his own eyes open.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let Charles be sad. Rockstar. Let my outlaw cry pls.
> 
> xoxo

“I’m glad I didn’t have to see him.”

Charles stops tending to the fire at the sound of her voice. She isn’t so talkative these days and if she’s choosing to tell him something, he knows it’s important. He stands and turns to her out of respect, a desire to understand her better because maybe then, he’ll be useful.

She pushes around the stew in her bowl, staring into it and seeing something else entirely. Another long moment passes before she speaks.

In that time, he relives carving names into wood and breaking soil to pour his heart into the earth. And suddenly, it’s hard again. Hard like the first day. Hard to breathe and so very hard to see clearly.

“I don’t think I could’ve handled that,” she continues with stuttering, shaky breaths that rattle him from across the room. “But I… maybe… puttin’ dirt on him would’ve… I don’t know, helped me believe it.”

Charles nods, lacking any words. He questions whether his burying Arthur for her didn’t spare her like he’d intended. If instead, he’d robbed her of the chance to loosen her grip on the dead. He’s making a mess of his so-called promise, mangling his friend’s ultimate desire.

She reaches up to cover her mouth with one hand and shuts her eyes like she’s nauseous. “He took… _everythin’…_ with him,” she whispers, muffled through her fingers.

The back of his throat feels tight and dry. He swallows but it’s difficult through the lump that’s forming. They have always lived fast, three lifetimes in one. It’s no wonder, then, that she sounds like a widow–completely distraught–when she speaks of Arthur, no matter how briefly he was hers.

“Food don’t even taste right,” she spits. She bites her lip as tears stream down her face. Something shifts then and she shakes her head. “Can’t sleep, can’t… even fuckin’ _eat_ –goddamn you, Arthur Morgan!” she stands and yells so suddenly that he flinches, swatting her bowl halfway across the room and spewing uneaten stew everywhere. Her cheeks flare to a bright and angry color.

She presses the heels of her palms into her eyes, doubling over. Her chest heaves as she pants before she breaks down and drops onto her knees with a _thunk_ that sounds painful to Charles.

“God help me,” she sobs loudly, so fervently that it’s indistinguishable from prayer.

He approaches her slowly and his hand covers the crown of her head where it’s bent over her lap. “I miss him, too.”

She sucks in a frantic breath. “ _I loved him._ ”

“I know.”

“ _So much._ ”

“He loved you.”

At that, she cries harder. Her whole body seems to sink into the floor. She doesn’t sound like she’s crying at all; she sounds like she’s drowning. Suffocating.

It’s too much.

The quake of Charles’ shoulders is long overdue. Arthur deserved more than what he got. He was loyal to the important things. One of few men he’d hand his own life over to. He should’ve _been there_ , if only because Arthur didn’t deserve to die alone. In an unbearable climax of crushing grief, he covers his face with one calloused hand and falls to the floor beside her, crying as quietly as he can. She sits up when she realizes, and squeezes her arms around his torso, resting her head in the crook of his neck. Her tears slip down his skin as they fall faster, uninhibited, compounded by seeing him shatter.

It’s the first moment he allows himself to freely experience what he usually tries to hold back for her sake. The first time he cries as hard as she does. The first time he realizes she might comfort him as much as he does her.

“Oh,” she whimpers, unnerved, “ _Charles_.”

She quiets as his control disintegrates and he slips into a broken mess around her. Holding around his neck tightly, she falls dutifully into the role of comforter at the shock of her strong keeper, the sturdy and constant Charles Smith, dissolving into tears.


	4. Chapter 4

His grave is a few dozen miles from the cabin. Not far but far enough because the fluttering in his stomach is torturous in the hours it take Taima and Jezebel to reach the recently disturbed patch of earth. When he’d buried Arthur, he hadn’t imagined coming back so soon. His heart flares up when it comes into view, bittersweet and haunted with the memories of blue lips and cold skin.

Magdelyn is silent. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t even sniffle for the entirety of the ride. She is strangely composed and it makes Charles even more anxious. Even when she sees the small cross marking the final resting place of her other half, she doesn’t cry.

He expected more tears but none come.

Magdelyn dismounts first and Charles follows, watching and waiting for a reaction. He’d expected a dramatic display of emotion. Something to hint at what she’d shared with the man in the ground.

He waits and watches but it doesn’t come.

She stands rooted in place for a long stretch of time. Her eyes run over the cross, the freshly upturned dirt, down and up and across over and over like she’s memorizing it. Her hand finds the brim of her hat, one that was once Arthur’s and that she has worn constantly for the last few days. Charles wants to know what’s going through her mind to ease the moment for her but he stays back and keeps his mouth closed.

This is what she needs.

It takes her a long while to work up to stepping closer. When she does, her steps are slow and careful. She plants herself on the grass beside the grave, gaze fixed on the cross. Her fingers extend and retract before she reaches out to touch the engraving. She lets out a whimper and her lips shake but still, she doesn’t cry.

She pulls back to rummage through her satchel and retrieve what Charles recognizes as Arthur’s journal. Her fingers are careful with the pages as she opens it. Scared to lose what little he left behind. She finds a blank page and a pencil and starts patiently sketching the scene in the dying light of evening.

Charles leads Taima closer and finds her a sugar cube in his pocket. He pulls her brush from her saddlebag. Runs it along her mane to look busy and to give Magdelyn the time she needs.

Behind him, he hears her close the journal softly and stow it in her satchel. She’s quiet and it’s rapidly growing dark. He’s about to ask her if she’s ready to return to the cabin when she starts talking, and not to him.

“I wish they buried us both,” she sighs. “I wish I wasn’t here without you. Because it’s… it’s hell.”

Taima whinnies and Charles strokes along her neck, muttering to her and quieting her.

Magdelyn is unfazed by the interruption. “I’m really scared, Arthur,” she whispers. He can hear the tears in her voice without turning to look but still he does, drawn by the terror in her words. “I’m scared that I’ll never enjoy anything without you. Maybe I don’t know how. I don’t particularly want to try. Don’ even… don’ have the energy.

“World feels different.” She swipes at the tears with the side of her hand and stares at the horizon. “Feels… worse. You never believed me or anyone else when we told you how _good_ you was. But if you wasn’t,” her voice breaks and then she speaks quietly, pushing through the heartache,” then why does the world feel so _bad_ when you’re gone?”

Charles doesn’t realize he’s crying until his eyes are flooded and he can’t see her anymore. He drops his head and tries to just breathe slow and calm breaths.

“I… _miss you_ , dammit.” She sobs once and catches herself. “I’ve cried so much over you, you idiot. And I think it’s because I _know_ that now… _now_ … no one is gonna tell me I’m beautiful anymore.” She bites her lip as she convulses but she doesn’t stop. “No one’s… God, there’s no one left to hold me and I never needed it so badly ‘fore now.

“But I don’t regret it. I’d do all of it again. That’s how good you were, Mister Morgan. You were a good, good man and we’re all poorer without you. You stubborn bastard.” She laughs and blots at her face with her sleeve. “And now you can’t even argue with me. Finally.”

She touches the cross again gently. Her hand caresses the lettering and her voice is adoring. “I love you. For always lookin’ out for me and everyone you cared about. Strangers, even. I saw it. I saw _you_. And if some money-grubbin’ author ever tries to write about you, I’ll make sure that’s your legacy. My Arthur, kind n’ fierce.”

She spends another few minutes on her knees there in front of the cross. She shakes and shivers but if she’s still crying, he can’t tell. He can’t bring himself to disturb her so he waits, works through his own emotions.

When she’s ready, she raises herself onto wobbly legs and trudges back to him.

He clears his throat. “You ready?”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head.

“Magdelyn,” he starts, and she looks up at him with purple shadows beneath her eyes, “I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry for you, too,” she whispers.

He helps her weary body back onto her saddle and climbs onto his own, both wholly raw. Magdelyn looks back and lets out a single strained breath as they ride away from graves and ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay it gets less sad from here on out. We made it, guys.
> 
> xoxo


	5. Chapter 5

Charles tries to be discreet about watching her but it’s hard not to gawk. For the first time in weeks, she finishes the entire plate of food she’s given and she looks better for it. A little more energy, color to her cheeks. She’s still thin but he hopes against hope that this is a turning point.

He doesn’t think she even notices. She takes small bites as her eyes scan the pages of the journal–Arthur’s journal–she’s been slowly working through since he gave it to her when he first arrived.

When she’s finished the meal, she pulls her legs up into the chair and squints at the page. Absentmindedly, she bites at her thumb nail. He doesn’t know what it is she’s reading, can’t even tell what it’s making her feel, but if it gets her to eat, he’s grateful.

He pulls on his coat and leaves her to her reading, quietly slipping outside to chop wood, make arrows, do something, _anything_ but sit and wonder what those pages hold. By the time he comes back in twenty minutes later, the journal is closed on the table and she’s staring into the wall, afflicted.

He sets the wood near the hearth and arranges it as he weighs the utility of asking her what’s on her mind. She’s always told him–always. But he doesn’t want to pry and every time his questions conjure tears, he can’t help but blame himself, as if he’s their source.

Throwing another log onto the dying fire, he asks, “You okay?”

He hears her shifting in her chair. “It’s strange _,_ is all.”

“What is?” He stands and goes to hang his coat near the door. As he passes, he sees her hands interlocking and twisting. A sure sign she’s anxious.

“I was just… readin’ how it was for him. How I was. It’s funny to see yourself through someone else’s eyes like that.”

“Hmm.”

They sit at the table together again without either feeling the need to speak. Magdelyn, because she’s thinking too much to do anything else, and Charles, because he prefers the quiet. They pass a small eternity that way, neither looking at the other, until Magdelyn clears her throat.

“You ever had someone like that?”

She’s crying. Streams and rivers and oceans rolling down her face without any sound. Perhaps the storm has passed, he muses, but this–waves of pain that agitate her scars–will remain. She won’t always find simple tasks so difficult. One day, she will feed herself, eat full meals and not have to count it as a victory. She’ll dress herself, comb through her hair, and breathe like she’s never lacked the oxygen to continue. But little can be done about that lasting pain. That slow flay of a soul forced into the future without the anchor it once had, making memories that don’t include the very one for which they were living for for so long.

That’s what he sees when he looks at her. The panic of facing down the rest of her days dreadfully alone and incessantly asking herself how different things would be if Arthur were where he should be. The torture of knowing he’s left her for good.

Charles has loved before. Been infatuated in his youth. But not like this. Not ever like this. Not in the way that Magdelyn loves a dead man.

He shakes his head. “No.”

Her eyes drop to the journal and stare into the leather cover for several beats. “He left me money.”

Charles isn’t surprised. Arthur left her most of what he owned.

“It’s in a…” He thinks she’s going to start crying but she laughs instead, “in a goddamn bank, if you’ll believe it. Didn’t know he knew how to make deposits.”

He smiles and chuckles and he doesn’t know how it happens but suddenly, they’re both laughing so hard and for so long that his stomach cramps. It _is_ funny, Arthur opening a bank account. Someone _letting_ Arthur open a bank account. With the amount of blood on that money, both literal and figurative, it’s surprising it would still be accepted.

Arthur Morgan, the man who robbed from banks just to start a savings account. Strange, indeed.

He tells her they’ll withdraw it when she feels up to it. She nods, because she doesn’t yet. For now, neither is ready to face a world short a man.

They will because they have to. But not yet.

Magdelyn falls asleep in her chair, thinking or daydreaming or whatever it is she does when she’s quiet. Charles carries her to the bed after a while so she doesn’t hurt her neck. He’s more than happy to take the floor for once.

He goes back to the table to put out the candles burning in the center. The journal is still there. Still open, spine bent and pages down. He just means to close it. But the image he sees when he flips it over gives him pause because Arthur never let him see his sketches and this one is a dead ringer for Magdelyn.

Beside the drawing is a journal entry in Arthur’s messy, unmistakable hand.

_Hard to see the good in this world. Wapiti children die while the goddamn army looks the other way. Can’t find no good in myself, neither. Feels like I’m always hurting folk and I ain’t even sure why anymore. Dutch and his delusions, I guess, and that snake Micah. All I got now is Maggie. She ain’t like the rest of us. She is the best of this world and I know that I do not deserve this._

_Beautiful Magdelyn. I wish I had more time. I’ve been a despicable man. I wanted to be better for you and I fear in the end, I failed you. I will die soon but my last thoughts will be of how goddamn beautiful you are. That you can love a fool like me is a testament to your charitable nature._

_Maggie is the best of us and damn it all, I wish I had more time._


	6. Chapter 6

“You just need to be patient,” he tells her.

“I _am_ patient,” Magdelyn huffs, struggling to pull back the arrow in her bow.

They’ve been out in the heat for an hour now. The sun beats down harshly on their faces and pulls beads of sweat from their pores despite how cold it’s becoming. It’s nearly fall but New Hanover is still hot and muggy.

Charles assesses her stance. “Mmm. Pulling too much with your arm. Pull with the muscles in your back.”

“I thought I _was_.”

“Go through the steps slowly. You remember?”

“I know,” she sighs, dropping her arms and readjusting her feet. She closes her eyes and rolls her shoulders because she’s too tense again.

“Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed, Magdelyn,” he reminds her softly.

Her eyes open and drill into the target: a tree beside the cabin. On the ground beside it, there are countless arrows strewn about, each representing a failed attempt at archery.

She’s no natural.

“I can shoot a damn gun so why can’t I do this?” she mumbles as she lines up her shot.

Charles crosses his arms and only smirks when he’s sure she’s too focused to notice. “A bow isn’t like a gun. The power in your shot comes from your body.”

She takes a few breaths to steady her nerves. One. Two. _Release_. The slice of the arrow through the air is crisp and quick and is abruptly cut off by the sound of stone embedding itself into wood.

“You did it.” He examines the arrow’s position. It is _in_ the tree, however far down the trunk it may be. He’s proud of her, nonetheless. It’s her first shot that’s actually hit something.

Nodding, she exhales through her nose. “Yeah.” She tilts her head. “Sort of.”

He places a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezes. “You did good. It ain’t easy, learning a new skill.”

A smile expands and pulls her mouth up until she bites down on her lip to keep it under control. “I know.”

She hasn’t looked really, truly happy for all the time they’ve been here. Even this is still a far cry from the way she used to be, but that sliver of delight in her smile is still remarkable.

It’s precisely that–her pride in her accomplishment–that inspires the first tender stirrings of affection for her beyond pity or obligation. He likes her, Magdelyn. She’s fine company. He’s never minded staying with her. Not then, with the gang, and not now. Not even as she drags herself along, sometimes only barely.

She has never been a burden but if he considers it–and now, he is–he thinks he can call her a friend.

“Again?” she asks, jogging toward the tree.

“Sure,” he grants. “If you’re up for it.”

“I am.”

She squats to gather the arrows that litter the grass and he thinks he even hears her humming. Little signs that hint at healing. Perhaps he isn’t doing so poor a job after all.

She takes her place again without speaking and he holds his breath as he watches her mentally walk through all of the steps. Her next shot is another miss but the following one hits higher on the tree.

She nocks her arrow carefully. “Charles?”

“Magdelyn?”

“I wanna go huntin’ with you next time.” Her arms are shaky and tired by this point. When she pulls back, her muscles twitch in overuse.

He can appreciate her perseverance but he worries. He worries a lot these days. She doesn’t know when to stop herself, will push herself too far if he says nothing.

His fingertips apply the lightest pressure to her arm and she looks back at him, questioning.

“C’mon. Think that’s enough for today.”

Her head swivels back to the tree and he thinks she’s going to ignore him. But then, with a sigh, she drops heavy, sore arms to her sides.

Vaguely, he remembers what she’s feeling. He’d felt it as a boy and again on the few occasions he’d been too injured to use his bow for more than a week. He hadn’t learned until he was older to soothe the angry muscles with warm water.

That’s what he’s thinking about–which garments he should rip up, soak, and heat–as he cleans up the arrows. Magdelyn helps and when they’re all tucked back into his quiver, they walk west toward the cabin, toward the setting sun.

The sky on fire, they both pause a moment to admire the sight. It’s breathtaking, but what’s more, it’s nostalgic. A piece of an old friend.

What he and Magdelyn see is not what anyone else would. It’s not the death of another day. It’s the one who might’ve been able to capture this view on paper.

Simple acts like breathing begin to feel too loud. Sacrilegious, even. Charles goes as quiet, as still as he possibly can. But even when Magdelyn falls onto her knees in reverence of the moment, it doesn’t feel bad.

It feels like hope, and they are oh so short on hope these days.

“Reckon we should watch the sunset more,” Magdelyn says softly.

Charles makes a sound of agreement.

They leave it at that.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is definitely my favorite so far.
> 
> xoxo

Magdelyn isn’t relaxed until after her third whiskey.

He knows the exact moment the warm liquid has soothed her anxiety because she drops her shoulders and breathes more deeply. It’s a medicine of a kind. No doctor can fix broken hearts but whiskey can anesthetize it. He surmises that’s why they’re here, despite how she detests saloons.

There’s a group of men beside them that Charles keeps an eye on. They’re the loudest tonight. It doesn’t necessarily mean trouble but it very well could.

“Another.” Magdelyn’s coins clatter to the bar and the shot glass before before her is filled. She stares into it angrily–no, he amends, it’s not _anger_.

Bitterness.

He glances over at the crash of a bottle to survey the drunken men. When he looks back, the whiskey is gone but the sharp edges of her features aren’t.

“That your plan?” he asks. He’s self aware enough to realize he’s disappointed and that she’s _hurting_ him with her carelessness. “Drink yourself into oblivion?”

She leans into her wrist with her elbow propped against the bar. “Don’t have no _plan_ , Charles.”

“You’re smarter than this, Magdelyn.”

“Not very smart all, else I wouldn’t be here,” she smiles. Not at him. Over his shoulder.

Looking behind him, he sees a man watching her without an ounce of propriety. Whose gaze slides down her body and he looks so goddamn sleazy that Charles simmers.

“This shit ain’t gonna make you feel any better,” he cautions.

“Might. How’d I know? Ain’t even tried yet.”

He growls, low and in the back of his throat. “You don’t even _know_ him. He could be anyone.”

“No.” She shakes her head, slow like it’s heavy, as her eyes water. “He couldn’t be.”

Immediately, he feels like an ass. He hadn’t meant to imply she was looking for some blank canvas, someone on whom she could project a lost love. But dammit, she isn’t being careful and he hates feeling more her armed guard than her companion because apparently, he isn’t good at either.

The man has made his way over to her and thinks nothing of slipping between Charles and Magdelyn. Hell, he might not even register Charles’ presence.

“What’s your poison?” he asks in a come-hither tone.

She shoots him a flirtatious smile. Her eyes are alight and open and friendly. “What’s yours, Mister?”

Magdelyn is sweet with him. Nauseatingly so. Charles refuses, against the inclination of his body, to move even an inch away, so he hears it all. Every line he feeds her, the hushed whispers, the sickening noise of his lips meeting her cheek, again and again, and then sliding down her jaw.

He’s pissed at her. If he weren’t also worried, he’d leave her to make her own stupid mistakes. But he doesn’t know this man and Magdelyn doesn’t either and _what the hell_ is she thinking?

A sudden smack and the man is shielding his face from her and Magdelyn raises her fist over him as he cowers.

“You piece of _shit_ ,” she cries, teeth grinding together, “ _don’t you dare_.”

Charles is on his feet, glancing between them and trying to figure out what he missed. Everything had seemed to be consensual.

The man groans and through a swollen jaw, mumbles, “Christ alive, what the hell was that for?!”

Her eyes are flaming. “You touched. My hat. _My_ fuckin’ hat.”

“Agh… so?!”

“So, you–” Charles steps into her line of sight and her eyes barely soften. “So it’s my goddamn hat, you moron.”

“Magdelyn,” he tries.

She leans around him like he isn’t there. “Next time, I swear, I’ll blow your goddamn brains out.”

Louder now, and sternly, he says, “Magdelyn.”

“The hell’d you say to me?” the man breathes, gripping her roughly by the collar.

Charles forces him back with his palms against his chest. “That’s enough! Don’t put your hands on her.”

He resists at first and then pushes Charles away but he’s _still_ glaring at Magdelyn. “Or her damn hat,” he adds, laughing humorlessly and spitting at her feet. “Crazy bitch.”

That’s the tipping point. Magdelyn’s mouth contorts into a snarl as she grips his shoulders and knees him where it hurts.

He moans dramatically and falls to his knees, holding his crotch. Any patron that wasn’t already watching the exchange is watching now. The bartender frowns at Charles and Charles nods, curling his fingers around Magdelyn’s upper arm and pulling her away from the fray.

“C’mon,” he says quietly when she resists.

Magdelyn looks back at the man on the ground. He thinks she’s proud of what she’s done but even when they’re finally outside of the saloon, she still refuses to meet his eyes. She’s trying her damndest to avoid his lecture.

Charles wants to keep a cool head. He does, and he tries to, but she’s drawing too much attention to them and making enemies when she doesn’t need to, so his words come out clipped and harsh. “What the hell was that?”

“Man was an asshole, Charles,” she says, convinced that’s a good defense.

“We got a price on our heads!”

Magdelyn sighs. “I _know_.”

“You can’t pull things like that anymore. We don’t have the numbers to break you out of jail if you’re arrested. It’s just you ‘n me now, Magdelyn, so you can’t…”

He trails off when the first tear falls. She bites into her bottom lip hard and averts her gaze while she pulls herself back together. A few breaths later, she says, “Weren’t his, that’s all.”

It takes a moment for Charles to realize why she snapped and why, in the aftermath, she’s struggling so much over a hat.

Oh.

It seems to belong to her now, she wears it so often. Even if it is a little big, he’s come to accept that it’s hers and somehow, he’s forgotten it hadn’t always been. That the last man to touch it had still been, up until a few minutes ago, Arthur Morgan.

She shrugs. “Shouldn’t touch things that ain’t his.”

They both hear the double meaning. She closes her eyes.

He isn’t angry anymore. Couldn’t be if he wanted to. Anger can’t cut the past away from the present.

“This was foolish. Can we go back?” she whispers, and she doesn’t mean to the saloon. Charles isn’t sure what to call the cabin. ‘Home’ doesn’t seem right.

“Let’s go,” he jerks his head toward their horses.

It’s a long and quiet ride back to the cabin and Charles spends it thinking of something to say. And shouldn’t he? Shouldn’t he try to make her feel better? But he takes too long to decide. Instead, she’s the first to talk, and it’s only a sentence across the pitch black room as they both try to fall asleep in a cabin that isn’t home.

“Charles?” She hesitates. “I’m… I’m sorry ‘bout tonight.”

He shakes his head, knowing full well she can’t see it. “Don’t be. He was an asshole.”


	8. Chapter 8

Magdelyn has nightmares. Awful, graphic visions that send her, startled, into sudden awareness at all hours of the night. The transition is always rocky; one moment, she’s sleeping like the dead and the next, gasping and crying and shaking, traumatized from whatever it is she’s seen.

She never tells Charles. He never asks.

It isn’t every night but when it happens, when she fights for breath and cries out so loudly that any passerby might think she was in physical pain, he rushes to her. Has learned to sit beside her and let her fall into him. Sometimes, she tries to soothe herself. He’ll wait near her for a long while before she blindly throws a hand out for him and he takes it firmly.

Other times, she tosses herself into him immediately and he knows from experience to keep his arms locked tightly around her to quell the tremors.

Tonight, she doesn’t even wake, but whatever she dreams has her crying loudly enough to rouse Charles.

So irregular are her sobs that at first, he can’t determine why he’s conscious. He opens his eyes and when he waits and hears nothing, he sits upright and reaches for his shotgun. His vision focuses and adjusts to the room and he can see no movement, no intruder, no reason to have stirred. Cautiously, he stands and pulls back the curtains but the blackness swallows anything he might see. There’s no lanterns or unknown horses, at least; a good indicator they’re still alone and safe in the cabin.

And then, he hears her choked cry and knows.

He’s there in a heartbeat. At her side, putting gentle pressure on her shoulder in the hopes that she’ll derive some measure of comfort from the gesture.

He sighs because he’s tired. Not _of_ Magdelyn, but _for_ her. He’s tired of hurting and her hurting and the dreams that hold her hostage. Her sleep is fitful on the best of nights and it can’t possibly leave her well-rested. That she functions at all is miraculous.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there like that. Only knows that eventually, she curls her fingers over his and turns her face into her pillow to muffle her weeping.

It doesn’t last. Soon, she’s out of energy or tears or both and she grows quiet and still. Sleeping, he thinks, and moves to leave but her fingers hold him to her with surprising might.

“You okay?”

He’s very aware in the moment how different his voice is for her. Always so tender, and God knows she needs it.

From her position curled into a tight ball on the floor, she sighs and speaks through chattering teeth. “H-h-hate dreamin’ ‘b-bout him.”

As much as he can, he understands.

She pulls herself up to sitting and leans her head back against the wall, nose toward the ceiling. All the while, she keeps his hand in between hers. “Charles… what am I gonna do?”

It doesn’t feel like his place to say. He can’t give her direction but he can’t rightly leave her directionless. “It’ll be easier, one day.”

“Will it?”

The shadows hide the uncertainty on his face. She doesn’t look at him anyway.

The truth is that neither of them know anything at all.

“Mhmm,” he hums lowly, squeezing her hand. “One day. Has to.”

And _one day_ holds enough comfort to lull them both back to sleep, side by side against the wall.


	9. Chapter 9

He looks over shelves that are almost bare and tries his best to tune out the obnoxiously loud conversation behind him. It’s almost impossible. The man at the counter chatting up the general store clerk most certainly wants to be heard and if that isn’t enough, he’s got far too much to say.

Charles thinks this man has spoken more in the span of minutes than he has in his lifetime. He doesn’t understand why some people seem to speak to hear their own voice. Wasted breath, in his opinion.

But in a reckless attempt to prove himself–to whom, Charles isn’t sure–the man lets it slip that he’ll be riding by coach to Sant Denis with a load of valuables. At this, Charles’ ears instinctually perk up and a few feet away, he feels Magdelyn freeze.

It’s habitual. An tendency bred over years of scouting for this sort of information. Months ago, it would’ve been a godsend, but he isn’t inclined to act on it any longer. Isn’t tempted in the slightest.

That’s not who he is anymore.

Magdelyn meets him at the counter once the man has finally left, a tin of coffee and a few cans of fruit in her hand. Charles pays for their goods and they walk out to stow their supplies in their saddlebags. Magdelyn moves slowly, a bit more distracted than usual.

She slips each can carefully into the leather pouch. “A stagecoach.”

“Hmm?”

“A stagecoach,” she repeats. “Man was talkin’ ‘bout a loaded stage. It don’t get much easier than that.”

It seems as though she’s speaking louder than she is. Charles looks around nervously. They haven’t done anything remotely criminal in a long while. They’re out of practice. With the gang dispersed, they don’t even have numbers on their side.

“Could have guards,” he cautions.

She scoffs and crosses her arms, a cold skepticism on her face. “So what if it does?”

“We have all we need right now.”

“But we don’t have _enough_ ,” she argues, her pitch rising to match her fervor. “Money’s gonna run out, Charles, and then what?”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“ _How_?”

Charles adjust Taima’s saddle. He feels his hands shake before he sees them, fumbling around the straps. “I’ll find work.”

Magdelyn doesn’t reply, but she does frown, and Charles thinks that’s its own response.

She’ll usually disagree with him loudly, without any inhibition. He mounts Taima and she mounts Jezebel and he spends time trying to untangle what it means when she doesn’t.

For all the days, weeks, months they’ve spent with one another, he doesn’t yet know her. Not this new Magdelyn, who spends more time in her head.

She stays removed for hours. She finds things to clean, grinds herbs, and Charles busies himself as well. It’s evenings when they find it harder to avoid one another, when dinner needs making.

He’s cutting meat from a fresh hunt and she’s shucking corn when the stalemate suddenly ends.

“How long’re you stayin’?”

Charles knows there’s more significance in his answer than there seems. “Sick of me already?” he teases.

She doesn’t laugh.

“Did... _Arthur_ ,” she says with extra care, making a conscious effort of late to speak that name out loud, “did he say how long for you to stay?”

“No.”

She just nods and doesn’t bring it up again.

The only other thing she says to him all night is after they’ve eaten, when she hugs him for the second time in his memory, and it’s to thank him for dinner.

But there’s a current of fear in her words. He knows what she means is _please don’t leave just yet._

She’s warm and small against his chest. He tells her it’s no trouble–and what he means is _I won’t_.


End file.
